Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Horror

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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Lockdown Tales #2 (Polity #23) 4Stars

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Title: Lockdown Tales #2
Series: Polity #23
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 337
Words: 150K

I read the first set of Lockdown Tales in ‘21. It was a strictly Polity universe set of stories and I enjoyed them. This time around, not every story was in the Polity universe. I’m still including this in my Polity numbering for the series, but there are one or two that aren’t Polity.

In his intro, Asher really lets loose against Civil Authorities overstepping the boundaries setup for them and how people just let them. He sounded very much like me in fact, or I sound like him (he’s older, so age before me). It made me laugh and cry because I completely agreed and yet a majority of the world didn’t, as they let fear, lies and manipulation determine their fate instead of taking it into their own hands.

I went into this collection thinking I would try to take notes on each story and write up my review that way, the way Marzaat (and others) do. However, that resolution didn’t last very long. With nine stories, each is a bit longer than just a “short story”, so I had to pay attention. I can’t read, pay attention, take notes AND enjoy the story all at the same time. So something had to give. Obviously, I just decided to not enjoy the stories and sacrifice my enjoyment for your edification. Because nobody is as important as you.

And if you believe that, you need some serious help. No, seriously, get some professional help. You rank about the same as monkey poop to me. Honest.

Therefore the notes went right out the window.

Xenovore was VERY similar to the previous book Weaponized and Asher even mentions that in his introduction. I was glad he did or else I would have felt very gypped. It wasn’t the same story but had enough of the same elements that I wished it had been shorter.

An Alien on Crete was a non-Polity story about an alien coming to Earth to awaken Earth’s guardian, blah, blah, blah. It didn’t engage me at all.

Skin was a story about a Polity citizen getting a new skin from a doctor who had run up against Polity rules. Of course, things go horrifically wrong and the skin ends up slithering away to the ocean. It was awesome.

Antique Battlefields was a tale of the Quiet War, when the AI’s took control. For me, this has always been the achille’s heel of the Polity Universe. I regularly overlook it every time I read a Polity book. The idea is that the AI’s are better than us without our corruption. We created them and thus they are inherently broken. That doesn’t fit Asher’s world view and so he just ignores it. It was interesting to see a quick snapshot of the war, but it really brought the aforementioned issue to my mind and so I just couldn’t ignore it.

Ha, would you look at that? I did ALL that without a single flipping note. My brain is awesome, that’s all I have to say. Suck it AI, you’ll never be anywhere near as talented in so many fields as I am.

There was one story where Asher lets loose his hatred of religion, but it was all of one sentence and in many ways felt more of an obligatory thing than because he actually feels that way. I think he does, but the fire is going out.

And that’s enough out of me. This is over 700 words now. Nobody needs to write or read something that long!

★★★★☆

Table of Contents:

LOCKDOWN TALES II An Introduction

XENOVORE

AN ALIEN ON CRETE

THE TRANSLATOR

SKIN

EELS

THE HOST

ANTIQUE BATTLEFIELDS

MORAL BIOLOGY

LONGEVITY AVERAGING

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Weaponized (Polity #22) 4Stars

Title: Weaponized
Series: Polity #22
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 481
Words: 163K

It’s been almost two years since I read Jack Four, the previous Polity book by Asher. I still vividly recall that book though because of all the pooping. Thankfully, in Weaponized, Asher moves away from that. However, what he moves into is as close to body horror as I ever want to get. I’ll talk more on that later.

This novel takes place before and around the beginning of the Prador War. We follow one Ursula as she moves into the ennui stage of life (somewhere around the 200 year mark for most humans, kind of like a very deadly puberty phase of life), then beyond it and then into the present, where she is trying to colonize a world outside of Polity control. Asher slices the story up into Past, Near Past and Present and slices each time line up and interweaves them. So for Chapter 1, you’ll have Present, about Ursula fighting on the planet. Then we’ll switch to Near Past about the colonists discovering whatever they are fighting in the Present. Then we’ll go to the Past which starts with her going through the military and getting kicked out because of the ennui. While it was handled well, I didn’t like it. It was very different from his previous novels and I suspect he did it just to see if he could but I sure hope he’s done with that little “phase”.

The pace here was just as unrelenting and furious as in Jack Four. Which leads into the body horror. This was also a Jain tech novel. By now, fans of Asher know how horrible Jain tech is, how pervasive, twisting and overpowering it is. But instead of the jain changing the colonists over a period of years, it happens within months, days and even hours. They change from humans to whatever is needed to survive, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. It was degradation on every level. What made it worse is that they chose it, even if they were under the influence of the jain tech. It became so bad that a Polity golem sacrificed herself to set off the entire CTD arsenal in a prador dreadnaught. Ursula STILL managed to survive and the novel ends with her entity being taken to a Polity AI to be studied. It was brutal. Asher does a great job of showing that the Polity is not some benevolent technocracy but just a series of programs weighing what is the best outcome for the greatest number. There have been times it felt like he was promulgating the idea that they were truly benevolent, but either my perceptions have changed or his writing has changed. Either way, it feels much more inline with my worldview and I for one am ok with whatever the reality of the change actually is.

Another fantastic journey into the heart of a future as envisioned by Neal Asher. I continue to recommend this Polity series.

★★★★☆

From the Publisher

Click to Open

With the advent of new AI technology, Polity citizens now possess incredible lifespans. Yet they struggle to find meaning in their longevity, seeking danger and novelty in their increasingly mundane lives.

On a mission to find a brighter future for humanity, ex-soldier Ursula fosters a colony on the hostile planet Threpsis. Here, survival isn’t a given, and colonists thrive without their AI guidance. But when deadly alien raptors appear, Ursula and her companions find themselves forced to adapt in unprecedented ways. And they will be pushed to the very brink of what it means to be human.

As a desperate battle rages across the planet, Ursula must dig deep into her past if she is to save humanity’s future.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Cthulhu’s Daughter and Other Horror Stories 1Star DNF@50%

Title: Cthulhu’s Daughter and Other Horror Stories
Series:
Author: Rhiannon Frater
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars /DNF@50%
Genre: Horror
Pages: 103 / 52
Words: 35K / 18K

I was going to add this to the Cthulhu Anthology series, but once I opened this up and found only the first story was Cthulhu related, I put paid to that.

The rest of what I read was so wrapped up in mommy issues that I wondered why the author hadn’t sought out professional help. It was that bad.

Then I got to the lesbian vampire story and that put paid to the book. I wasn’t sad about stopping, that’s for sure.

★☆☆☆☆

Table of Contents

Click to Open

The Old Ones / Cthulhu’s Daughter

The Monster with the Human Face

The Vampires

The Werewolves

The Mummy

The Zombies

The Monsters from Beyond

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales 3Stars

Title: Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales
Series: ———-
Author: Edwin Tubb
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Horror Anthology
Pages: 148
Words: 59K

I was talking with somebody, at some time (I think it was Snapdragon Alcove) and she asked if I’d ever read anything by E.C Tubb. I hadn’t, so I decided to rectify that situation with this standalone collection of short stories by him.

Tubb was quite interested in the supernatural and more specifically, the occultic supernatural. But he was also just fine writing about messed up humanity.

One of the stories is about an older man who has had a stroke. He is convinced his wife has been taken over by an alien and in the end kills her. Only the reader knows everything the narrator is seeing and thinking has been corrupted by the stroke he had. That was the non-occultic kind of scary.

Then you have a story about a guy who robs a cultic temple and takes the jewel from the idol’s forehead. It is a snakegod and he convinces a friend to help him get back to Britain. On the ship ride back, he is mysteriously crushed to death in a locked cabin. The friend returns the jewel and becomes an adherent of the snake god cult.

Tubb is better known (or so I gather) for a science fiction series called Dumarest. I don’t know a thing about it, but after this collection, I’m going to track down a couple and see how they compare. While I wasn’t particularly wowed by this collection, it kept my interest and made me want to check out more by Tubb.

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents:

MIRROR OF THE NIGHT

THE ANCIENT ALCHEMIST

THE ARTIST’S MODEL

SNAKE VENGEANCE

THE ENEMY WITHIN US

STATE OF MIND

SELL ME A DREAM

THE WINNER

THE WITCH OF PERONIA

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Cat Magic ★★☆☆☆

Title: Cat Magic
Author: Whitley Strieber & Jonathan Barry
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 353
Words: 134K

Ooooooh boy. * puffs out cheeks *

I’ve never read anything by Strieber before and wanted to give his writings a go. I knew he was horror’ish or real life aliens or something weird, so I thought I was prepared. I had no idea.

I saw the subtitle for this book on a later edition and it was “A Tale of Modern Witchcraft”. I really wish I had seen that before deciding to start with this book. I guess if I could sum up this book I’d go with “sexual orgies while children watch and the only sin is Guilt itself”. Ughhh. There was a lot of theological ideas put forth that I really had to disagree with. Not in an angry way but more in a “are you serious?” way.

While I have a bunch of Strieber’s books on tap, I think I’m going to try his Omega Point duology next. It’s about aliens somehow. If he puts forth more bad theology though, I’ll be done with him. I have no idea who this Barry fellow is or what part he played in writing the story. I wonder if he did the heavy lifting though.

Overall, this was not a good first impression and I certainly won’t be recommending Strieber even if his later books improve.

★★☆☆☆

Sunday, December 04, 2022

Event Horizon (1997 Movie)

Event Horizon is a 1997 Space Horror movie directed by Paul Anderson, who later went on to direct many of the Resident Evil movies.

I really like this movie. If you had told me beforehand that I’d like a space horror movie that involves a possessed spaceship that kills it crew, well, I’d probably have looked at you funny and suggest you get your head checked.

The basic story is that in 2040 the Event Horizon, utilizing a new gravity drive to break the speed of light, disappears with all crew. The movie starts 7 years later when it mysteriously re-appears. A rescue ship is sent with a small crew to find out what happened. Along with them is Dr Weir, the creator of the gravity drive. They get to the ship, it’s abandoned but something is on board and begins killing them. Dr Weir gives in to be with what appears to be his dead wife and only 3 members of the rescue crew survive and make it back to earth. The Event Horizon goes back to the alternate dimension of hell that it came from.

On this rewatch, I realized that part of the reason I like this so much is because there are little flashes from the hell dimension that remind me of the cenobytes from Hellraiser, another horror movie that surprised me by how much I liked it. Nothing big mind you, just these very quick, almost too fast to process, images of the former crew and the current crew, going through tortures with chains and spikes, etc.

Of course, being a horror movie, there are some really stupid, illogical parts that you have to turn your brain off for. First and foremost, how does the entire scientific world forget the latin language in 50 years? The last message from the Event Horizon has the captain saying something in latin but no one on Earth recognizes it? Secondly, most of the crew do not act like seasoned space rescue operators. They act like the jomokes down at the local Cumberland Farms who hang out in the parking lot smoking weed, thus turning themselves into dumb as bricks idiots.

On the plus side, Sam Neal as Dr Weir, going off the deep end, is fantastic. He has guilt about his wife committing suicide way back when because he chose work over her and how the entity mimics her is a joy to behold. His unravelling is superb, as he’s a jerk to begin with. Laurence Fishburne is the captain of the rescue ship and he’s appropriately hard nosed yet caring.

The only part I wish had been different would have been the ending. 3 of the crew survive and are rescued. One of them thinks the rescuers are the possessed Dr Weir and has a break down but the movie ends very clearly with them having escaped. What I would have appreciated is a scene showing them still on the Event Horizon, living their rescue over and over and it failing each time. THAT would have been much more inline with the tone of the movie.

Man, can you believe I am suggesting a worse ending instead of a happier one? Surprises me too! I guess that plays a part in why I like the movie so much.

Monday, September 05, 2022

Dead Silence ★☆☆☆☆

Title: Dead Silence
Series: ———-
Authors: Stacey Barnes
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 319
Words: 109.5K

Synopsis:

From the Publisher & Me

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed―made obsolete―when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find is shocking: the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick search of the ship reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold on to her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

Turns out everything was caused by a machine put on board the ship by a rival company that was supposed to make everyone feel dread and uneasiness. The ship used a new alloy and the interactions between the machine and ship drove everyone insane.

Claire survives as does her loverboy and they get rich and own their own shipping company. The end.

My Thoughts:

I went into this with very high hopes. Both Mogsy and Maddalena had reviewed it and while there were some little things that niggled at me, what they wrote sounded fantastic.

Things started out really great. I’m talking Event Horizon levels of great in fact. Which is exactly what I wanted and was looking for. Then I find out the main character is insane, so I can’t trust a word coming out of her mouth, then the whole “scary” situation gets “scyenzesplained” to me and THEN romance right at the end where the man knows exactly what to do and what to say like he’d read the main character’s insane mind and was pretty much the perfectest man ever.

It blew my mind. In a bad way. I was pretty angry in fact. To go from people ripping their own eyeballs out to scyenze to romance was more than I could take. Stacey Barnes took a space elevator ride straight to my Authors to Avoid list with this book. What gets me is that it DID start out so fantastic. WHY did she have to go and change things and ruin everything? I could smell the hotdog. I could see the hotdog. Then the author gave me a celery stick and acts like it was that all along. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

So if you want a scary story that is ruined by scyenze and romance, this is definitely the book for you. If I cared more, I’d cross post this review to all sorts of other platforms just to give people fair warning. But in about 10 years nobody will ever remember this book, because it truly is that bad. I’ll step aside and let Time be the author’s executioner.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

A Season in Carcosa (The King in Yellow Anthology #4) ★★★★✬

Title: A Season in Carcosa
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #4
Editor: Joseph Pulver
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 268
Words: 100K

Synopsis:

Table of Contents

This Yellow Madness (introduction) by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

My Voice is Dead by Joel Lane

Beyond The Banks of the River Seine by Simon Strantzas

Movie Night at Phil’s by Don Webb

MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room by Daniel Mills

it sees me when I’m not looking by Gary McMahon

Finale, Act Two by Ann K. Schwader

Yellow Bird Strings by Cate Gardner

The Theatre & Its Double by Edward Morris

The Hymn of the Hyades by Richard Gavin

Slick Black Bones and Soft Black Stars by Gemma Files

Not Enough Hope by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr

Whose Hearts are Pure Gold by Kristin Prevallet

April Dawn by Richard A. Lupoff

King Wolf by Anna Tambour

The White-Face At Dawn by Michael Kelly

Wishing Well by Cody Goodfellow

Sweetums by John Langan

The King Is Yellow by Pearce Hansen

D T by Laird Barron

Salvation In Yellow by Robin Spriggs

The Beat Hotel by Allyson Bird

My Thoughts:

My goodness, these anthologies are going up and down for me like a teetertotter! When they are good, they are REALLY GOOD and when it’s bad, it’s so bad I can’t finish them. Thankfully, this was on the upper part of the seesaw.

I went into this a bit worried since Pulver was the editor and I absolutely hated the previous book which was edited and written by him. Thankfully, he only contributed a small part of this. I did realize that I don’t like his writing, period though. There were 1 or 2 poems, which did nothing for me. But Pulver’s story was the only real let down. Not surprising but it’s what kept this from a full 5star.

But most of the other stories were flipping fantastic if you dig cosmic horror. From slides into madness and horror to the unveiling of horrific powers, these ran the gamut from shiver your backbone to a chill of deliciousness running down your spine to the completely inexplicably weird.

I really can’t say that any of these were “better” than the others, but the 2 I do remember are Yellow Bird Strings and Wishing Well. YBS was about a former puppeteer who by the end of the story has become the puppet himself. It was hard to tell if he was going mad or if it was all real. Exactly the right tone for a King in Yellow Story. WW on the other hand, had real IT (by Stephen King) vibes with 2 storylines about kids and them now as adults. A twisted tv show created by a cult of the KIY was the focus and the ending where the main character who appears to be a loser the whole time is revealed to be the son of the King in Yellow, or something like that. It was deliciously spine tingling.

Another absolute winner of a read and I’m pretty happy. These books are definitely not for everyone, in fact I’d say that the majority of readers wouldn’t go for The King in Yellow, but they fit me like a glove, so I’m going to revel in them while I can.